


Hey There, Delilah

by kijilinn



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Kittens, Negan's mouth, Swearing, rescuing kittens, sometimes you just need a cuddle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-20
Updated: 2016-12-20
Packaged: 2018-09-10 16:23:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8924026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kijilinn/pseuds/kijilinn
Summary: Negan takes a mini-vacation and comes home with more than he bargained for: three kittens and their mother.





	1. Chapter 1

It was early for snow in Virginia. The idea of cold weather in December wasn’t unusual, but the flakes falling from the sky to blanket the surface of the hard-packed lot outside the Sanctuary made for quite a change. Negan watched it fall, his eyes half-closed as he considered what the change in precipitation might mean for supply runs and tracking issues. The last thing he really wanted to do today was give orders or change orders. He’d given enough orders for a lifetime. 

“Fuck it,” he muttered to himself and reached for one of the thick hooded sweatshirts he kept stuffed in a corner of the closet. He was much less recognizable outside of his usual motorcycle jacket and he could do for a vacation without Lucille bothering him. It was a bright red sweatshirt emblazoned with a sports team’s logo and he smiled wistfully as he pulled it over his head, closing his eyes to breathe in the smell of fabric softener, one of the last wisps of home. “Go Caps,” he sighed and pulled the hood back from his face. 

There would never be another Capitals/Redwings game. The zambonis were still and silent. The players were all dead, as far as he knew. He certainly hadn’t seen any professional hockey players swinging their sticks into the brains of the dead. Or staggering among the walkers. Negan smiled to himself, amused by the thought. “Zombies on ice,” he grinned, letting himself turn a quick pirouette in an empty hallway before sneaking out into the courtyard and past the guards. He had his long knife strapped to his thigh, a gun tucked into the back of the baggy cargo pants. He didn’t need Lucille today. Even if he did feel naked without her.

The guards on the fence looked askance at him, but he waved a hand and they waved back, recognizing him. He rolled one of the motorcycles to the gate, waited while they rolled it open, then roared out down the road, leaving his empire behind for a while. The snow coming down coated the road in damp fluff as it first melted and the temperature continued to plummet. He knew he was going to regret not bringing a scarf, at the very least. But it felt too good to lean into the biting wind, free and clear with nobody nagging at his back.

Negan rode for almost an hour, wandering along back roads as random whim took him. Occasionally, he stopped to take down thicker clusters of walkers just to make sure his trip back was as smooth as possible. On one of those pauses, he was cleaning his knife when he thought he heard something. A tiny, pathetic cry, almost child-like. It pulled on him and he winced, rubbing a knuckle into the center of his chest at the ache there. He followed it, carefully working his way off the road until he found the thicket of berry bushes and locust trees overgrown with kudzu. 

The snow had started to come down harder and Negan had to squint in the dimming light to see, but back in and amongst the tangled vines and spiny branches was a big, fluffy tabby cat with glinting green eyes. “Well, hello, beautiful,” he murmured as he knelt outside the thicket and peered in at her. The cat bared her teeth at him in a feral hiss, but he could tell she was exhausted, too thin and shivering in the cold. “I’m not gonna hurt you, beautiful,” he whispered and gently pushed the branch upwards, keeping a careful eye on the sharp locust spines that tried to snag on his sweatshirt sleeve. “C’mon, sweetheart,” he coaxed. “C’mon out.”

When the cat recoiled, something behind and under her began to protest and Negan felt his heart break: she had kittens. She shuffled her feet without letting her eyes stray from his face, collecting her brood and pushing them farther back. “Baby, c’mon,” he sighed and wiggled down to his belly, extending one hand palm-up toward the cat. “You’re gonna fucking freeze out here. Come home with me.” The snow was still falling and it started to trickle down the back of his neck. After a few stalemated seconds, he felt wet breath on his fingers and Negan looked up hopefully, smiling at the cat who sniffed his fingers. She was still wary of him, but curious and familiar enough with people to come closer. 

The kittens had come with her: two orange tabbies and a tri-color with a white bib. They barely had their eyes and ears open, all of them shivering and mewling protest at the cold snow falling on their ears and noses. They were all long-haired like their mother, but their eyes were still the blue of kittenhood. “Come home with me,” Negan murmured, gently wiggling his fingers until he felt the mother cat rubbing her cheek slowly against his hand. “That’s a good girl. It’s warm at home and we’ve got plenty of mice. Been just telling Simon we should be looking for strays. We’ll take good care of you. C’mere, gorgeous.” He slipped his hand under her chest and lifted, drawing her out of hiding and into his arms. She squirmed and protested with a weak hiss, but was purring by the time he had her settled against his chest. “Poor baby,” he murmured, stroking her damp fur. “You were somebody’s love bug, weren’t you? Why can’t people fucking spay their pets?” 

After a minute of consideration, Negan stood up and tucked the hem of his sweatshirt down into his pants. The cat squeaked in worry, then allowed him to stuff her down the neck of his sweatshirt to lie warmly against his belly. With one hand cupped under her, he reached down and collected the kittens one at a time. The cargo pockets were large enough for a kitten each, so the orange boys went into each side and he tucked the calico into the kangaroo pocket in the front of his shirt. When he returned to the motorcycle, they were all purring loudly.

 

***

 

It was well after dark. Simon leaned on the railing of the guard post, eyebrows drawn down in concern. “And he went out when?”

“Sometime around three?” the guard said with a shrug. “Motorcycle. Just a sweatshirt, though. Don’t think I’ve ever seen him dressed like that.” 

Simon frowned deeper. “I’m going out to look for him. This isn’t right.”

“Who’s there!?” shouted one of the other guards farther down the fence. A lone figure was pushing a motorcycle back through the accumulated snow. With the bright red hood up, Simon wasn’t sure at first if it was Negan, but when the leader of the Saviors pushed his hood back and grinned up, Simon let out a long, relieved breath.

“You look like you gained about twenty pounds,” he said as he joined Negan at the gate. 

Negan chuckled and leaned his head back as a brown-striped face with long white whiskers poked out the neck of his sweatshirt. “It’s all fur,” he admitted. “We’ve been keeping each other warm. You mind taking the bike?”

“Sure.” Simon grinned and shook his head as he rolled the motorcycle toward the motor pool. 

Negan headed straight for the supply rooms, collecting what he needed as he went. He wrote it all down quickly in a scrawl and left the paper near the accounting station, signed just with a checkmark. Headed up to his suite, the mother cat made an unhappy sound and sank her claws into his stomach. “We’re almost there, baby,” he assured her gently and started taking the stairs two at a time, much to the protest of the kittens in his cargo pockets. “I’m going, I’m going!” Finally, bursting into his room, he spilled all the cats onto his bed along with several blankets, two cans of tuna, bowls for food and water, and half a dozen balls of yarn. “I’ll have to figure out a litter box,” he told the mother as he stroked her ears and back up her tail. “We didn’t exactly stock kitty litter.”

He opened the tuna and poured it into a bowl, collected some water in the other. The adult cat made a little rush for the food and water, purring loudly as she gobbled it down. Negan dropped backwards onto the bed with a sigh, listening to the purring cat and the curious little mews of the kittens. He felt a smile spreading across his face, a real smile. An uncultured, unmoderated smile.

When Simon knocked on the door and peeked in a few minutes later, he found his leader sound asleep on the bed with a tri-color kitten tucked under his chin, her fur tangled up in his beard. The two orange kittens were wrapped around each other under one arm and the mother cat was curled neatly into a fluffy ball in the middle of Negan’s stomach. He chuckled to himself, then slipped the door quietly shut again.


	2. Chapter 2

Negan woke up from his nap with a crick in his neck and a complete inability to move his torso. He managed to tilt his head enough to see that he had a calico kitten under his chin and a much larger ball of fluff in the middle of his chest, her paws stretched out and her chin resting on his sweatshirt. Everything was muffled through the purring orange ear muffs he had acquired during his nap. “Great,” he sighed, both amused and a little annoyed. “Fan-fucking-tastic. Now I’ve got cats.”

At the sound of his voice, the adult cat lifted her head and started to purr again, kneading her front paws into the thick fabric of his sweatshirt. Her claws were long, but he could tell she knew how to not use them: not even a touch of claw came through the fabric and she always fully released when she pulled her paws back. “Aren’t you a gentle girl?” he smiled at her and reached one hand slowly up to stroke her head. She bumped her face into his hand and he grinned wider. “Not so fucking scared now, are you?”

He felt the little tickle of baby claws near his neck as the kitten under his chin stretched and yawned. Negan just held still while the kittens started waking up and poking around his face. When they discovered their mother, she climbed down from his chest with a pitiful sigh before flopping on her side to let them nurse. Free of his furry burden, Negan rolled onto his side to watch them. With all three kittens purring and kneading on their mother and the adult cat half-asleep in contentment, he smiled and pushed himself up onto his feet again and set about organizing the blankets he’d taken from the store room. He rolled one blanket into a nest and set it on the couch, then did the same with another and put it near the heat register on the floor, leaving enough room so it wouldn’t be a fire hazard. He leaned back over to stroke the graceful tabby “M” on the mother’s face before he murmured, “I’ll be back with a sand tray, pretty girl. As soon as I fucking figure it out.” 

Negan stood and walked to the door, reached to open it, and paused to listen to the movement outside. He tilted his head and let a small smirk curl his lips before he pulled the door open, causing Simon and two of the younger Saviors to tumble into the room at his feet. “Can I help you folks?”

Simon looked up slowly, then offered Negan a cheesy grin. “I heard you had an infestation of sorts, boss. We’re here to help.”

Negan shook his head and smiled. “Come the fuck in, then. You, what’s your name again?” He pointed to the female Savior who was rocking back on her heels and trying to look like she had planned that fall the whole time.

“M-me?” she asked, her eyes wide.

Negan rolled his eyes. “No, your fucking smarter sister.”

“Izzy,” the girl said and looked down at Negan’s feet, her face flushing in embarrassment.

“Yeah.” Negan paused, letting his eyes scan over her face. She was in her mid-twenties with dark eyes and dark, short-cropped hair that looked like she’d been hacking at it with scissors every few weeks for the last two years. Which she probably had. Her skin had tanned from outdoor work, but he could still see a scattering of freckles across her nose. A nose that was surprisingly cute in her otherwise unremarkable face. She looked familiar enough that he knew she’d been around for a while and it took a few minutes of racking his brain for the details to come to him. “Yeah, you’re the chick we found on the college campus, up in the fucking rafters of the theatre.” He grinned, “You were badass up there. Picking off walkers with a rifle.”

Izzy smiled and her embarrassment shifted into pride. “Yes, sir, that’s me.”

“What’re you doing here?” Negan let his smile widen when she shifted uncomfortably and blushed again. “Really that excited to see a little fucking pussy?”

The girl snorted and gave him a half-smile. “I wanted that, I’d get a mirror. I heard there were kittens and I haven’t snuggled a cat in two years.” When Negan started to wind up to tease her some more, her chin came up and he stopped, surprised at the glint in her eye. “I’m a Savior, sir, and I don’t work for points. But I’ll fucking work for points if it gets me a kitten.”

Negan raised his eyebrows and looked at Simon where his lieutenant was still sprawled on the floor. One of the orange kittens had found his way down from the bed and was busy licking the end of Simon’s nose while the man grinned in helpless amusement. “They’re still a little fucking young for that,” he told Izzy and stepped over Simon to scoop up the kitten. “But run downstairs and get me a tray full of sand they can use for litter and we’ll talk, sweetheart.” Before he could even second-guess this offer, a brilliant smile had transformed Izzy’s face and she threw him a rapid salute before sprinting down the stairs and out of sight. “Some people will do anything for a little pussy,” he mused to the orange kitten, who squirmed and mewled in protest.

 

***

 

When Izzy returned with a shallow cardboard box full of clay cat litter, she found Negan and Simon both sitting cross-legged on the floor. The mother cat was curled into a fluffy ball in Negan’s lap and Simon had one of the orange kittens sitting on his shoulder and mewing stridently in his ear whenever the man stopped petting him. The other Savior, Bryan, was lying on his back on the floor beside them with the calico kitten sitting on his chest and purring. The other orange kitten appeared in a frenzy of indecision, running from Negan’s lap and nuzzling his mother to bounding across to Simon and yelling up at his brother. 

“Your potty has arrived,” she informed the mother cat as she presented the box and closed the door behind her. As if she’d understood the words, the adult cat popped up from Negan’s lap and rushed to sniff and scrape around the box before squatting. “She’s been holding it,” Izzy observed.

“She’s a good girl,” Negan agreed, then tilted his head to grin up at her. “You found fucking cat litter?”

“We were using it for traction and ice melt,” she said with a smile and a shrug. “They have names yet?” Izzy dropped to the floor and crossed her legs, letting her hands rest on her knees and ignoring the cats, yet speaking in a soft, lilting, lyrical voice that even made Negan feel calmer. 

“Of course they have fucking names,” Negan smiled. “Just haven’t told us them yet.”

“So you’re one of those cat people.” Izzy regarded Negan critically for a moment, then smiled. “They’re jellical cats?”

“Come one, come all,” agreed Negan as the mother cat covered her leavings neatly and returned to his lap. “This little girl is a fierce one, for all her cuddling,” he added, rubbing the big tabby behind her ears. “She was ready to fight me for her kittens, even shaking with cold.”

“Warrior princess,” chuckled Simon.

“Her name is not Xena.” When the cat looked up at him, Negan blinked and looked back down. “Oh, please tell me your name isn’t Xena.” She squinted her eyes at him and started to purr louder, making him sigh and rub her head sadly. “Who am I to fucking argue with a cat?”

Izzy grinned and watched as the calico kitten rolled her way down Bryan’s chest and began poking around the floor, sniffing closer and closer toward where she was sitting. “Hey, there, pretty girl,” Izzy said, letting the kitten sniff her fingers. “Should we call you Gabrielle?”

“Hell no,” Negan replied coldly, but Simon laughed.

“Hercules and Ianto,” he added in amusement.

“Iolaus,” corrected Izzy. “Ianto was from Doctor Who.”

Simon sat up suddenly, his eyes wide as he stared at Izzy. “You’ve watched Torchwood.”

Izzy widened her eyes and nodded slowly, watching him warily. “Yeeees?”

Before she could say anything further, Simon had scrambled across the floor, seized her in a hug and kissed her soundly. Izzy squeaked while Negan laughed, his head thrown back and the kittens all squeaked their way nervously around the floor at all the activity. Somehow, Simon had managed to keep from dislodging his passenger and there was now an orange kitten purring in Izzy’s face. “I think I’m in love. You have no idea how long I’ve waited for someone who could actually speak geek.”

Izzy chuckled and patted his cheek. “Boss, I’ve been here for six months. You just don’t listen very well.” She collected the kitten from his shoulder as Simon sat back, looking almost pouty. “Besides. I’m just here for the pussy.” Negan continued to laugh, hugging himself as he leaned back against the couch and the cat in his lap gave him a dirty look for moving around so much.


End file.
